The Hamburg architectural firm of Peter Schweger and Partners planned the building of the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg as a transparent urban loggia with an extensive overarching glass roof over the open Hollerplatz.

The architect Kazuhisa Kawamura modeled it after the Zen garden of the Ryōan-ji temple in Kyōto and included elements from the architecture of Mies van der Rohe to symbolize the dialog between East and West.

Large-scale retrospectives from the field of classic modern art, for example Fernand Léger and Bart van der Leck, alternate with survey shows such as Full House, German Open, The Italian Metamorphosis 1943–1968 and Blast to Freeze.

Monographic exhibitions devoted to contemporary artists include Carl Andre, Andy Warhol, Luc Tuymans, Olafur Eliasson, Frank Stella, James Turrell and Imi Knoebel.

With the start of the new directorship in 2006, the exhibition program placed contentual accents in large-scale historical and thematic shows (ArchiSkulptur, Japan and the West, Interior/Exterior, The Art of Deceleration), solo exhibitions (James Turrell and Alberto Giacometti) as well as in mid-career retrospectives (including Douglas Gordon, Neo Rauch and Philip Taaffe) that took up the theme of modernism in the 21st century, illuminating it from various perspectives.

Artists in the collection include Carl Andre, Christian Boltanski, Douglas Gordon, Andreas Gursky, Georg Herold, Anselm Kiefer, Mario Merz, Gerhard Merz, Bruce Nauman, Neo Rauch, Burhan Dogancay, Cindy Sherman, Philip Taaffe, Jeff Wall, Olafur Eliasson, Douglas Gordon, Thomas Schütte and Jeppe Hein.

After Asta Holler's death in 1990, the Holler-Stiftung was accordingly established in Munich with the purpose of providing funds to benefit youth welfare, the care of the seriously ill as well as the promotion of science and art.